Yeah it is, but since this is my recipe post, I'll expand on this topic. Like Oanh, I've also come across several blogs and Chowhound posts with people referring to bun bo Hue as "spicy pho" or "pho gone wild" or some such approximation. This needs to stop. Look, I get that if you're not Vietnamese you may not understand all the nuances of the many noodle soups that Vietnamese cuisine has to offer. But to a Vietnamese, pho and bun bo Hue are such completely different dishes that calling bun bo Hue "like pho" sounds ridiculous.

So except for the fact that they both are beef noodle soups and bean sprouts, chilies, onions, and limes (which almost all Vietnamese noodle soups) serve on the side, nothing else is the same. Different origins, different spices, different stock, different meats, different flavoring agents, different noodles, different herbs, different other vegetation, different dipping sauces? So tell me again how bun bo Hue is "like pho"? Or "spicy pho"? Or "pho gone wild"?

Let me simplify by using Italian food as an analogy. If I were to describe Fettuccine Alfredo to you and said it's "like spaghetti." Except, you know, fettuccine alfredo has different noodles, different sauces, different meats, different flavors entirely. Most of us know that fettuccine alfredo and spaghetti are very, very different dishes. But if you're not familiar with Italian cuisine and someone described fettuccine alfredo as "like spaghetti," wouldn't that come with a set of expectations?

And so it is, that if you describe bun bo Hue as "like pho" a person unfamiliar with Vietnamese cuisine will be expecting a similarly delicate broth. Bun bo Hue is not delicate. The broth can be mildly spicy to sweat-running-down-your-face spicy. The lemongrass notes are very distinctive from pho's star anise, cinnamon, and clove scent. And the very earthy shrimp paste underlies all those flavors. Like Italian pasta, Vietnamese dishes use different flat, round, and wide noodles for a reason. Also, while the Thai basil and sawtooth herbs used in pho are to enhance the delicate spices, the mint, Vietnamese coriander, purple perilla, and banana blossoms are to tone down and balance the earthiness of the fermented shrimp paste.

So please, now that I've hammered it into you, you can call it spicy beef noodle soup, but don't ever refer to bun bo Hue as anything remotely "like pho." You know better now.

This was actually my first time making bun bo Hue. I knew in general what to do, but it's a rather laborious soup to make. It's not difficult, there's just a lot of ingredients. But you know, after the mini-rant, I felt the need to set the record straight. And well, posting a recipe is the best way to illustrate that. I made a big pot and fed many people over the course of several days. I guess you could drastically reduce this recipe for only a few people, but it takes so much work that you might as well invite company over. My childhood friend ate several bowls and said it was the best bun bo Hue she's had in years. My daddy said I should've asked my mom for her recipe. :P So you know, your mileage may vary, this is simply how I like mine.

Like all my recipes, I've written it in the order I would perform each step. I also prefer to make my Vietnamese stock soups over the course of two days, refrigerating the initial stock pot overnight so the fats can harden at the top for easy removal. Since bun bo Hue is not as delicate of a broth as pho, you don't have to cook the bones for as long, about 2 to 3 hours is sufficient. I recommend using a big cast iron enameled stock pot or a similarly thick-walled pot as the extra heat retention will extract more flavor from the bones and tenderize the meat faster.

And obviously, you're going to want to hit a good Asian grocery store for most of these ingredients.

Bun Bo Hue (Vietnamese Hue-Style Beef Noodle)

For 6 quart pot, about 6 to 8 servings, you'll need:

For the stock:
3 to 5 lbs of pork and/or beef bones (I used 2 to 2 1/2 lbs of each. More bones, More flavor.)
8 stalks of lemongrass, smashed and bruised
2 tblsp Mam Ruoc (Vietnamese Fermented Shrimp Paste)
1 large knob ginger, smashed
1/4 pineapple, toss in ends when you trim the eyes and the center fibrous part too
1 large onion
A few cloves of garlicNuoc Mam (Vietnamese Fish Sauce), to taste

For additional meats, use any or all of the following:
2 lbs pig's feet
2 lbs beef shank, sliced about 1/4-inch thickCha lua (Vietnamese steamed pork loaf)Cha tom (Vietnamese shrimp paste) Use the shrimp paste recipe in my recipe for Tom Tau Hu Ky (Vietnamese Shrimp Paste in Bean Curd Skin).Huyet (Vietnamese steamed pig's blood.) Even if you don't eat them, blood cubes add a lot of flavor to the broth. Look for them in the fresh meats aisle. They're sometimes sold in containers.

For the noodles:bun (Vietnamese round rice noodles). I prefer Three Ladies brand Jiangxi bun giang tay. They come bundled into individual servings. One bag has four bundles and costs 49 cents.

For the garnish platter, any or all of the following in whatever quantity you wish:
MintRau ram (Vietnamese coriander)Tia to (Vietnamese purple perilla)
Cilantro
Onions, thinly sliced
Bean sprouts
Limes
Banana blossom, thinly sliced or substitute with red cabbage

First off, you'll need lots and lots of lemongrass. About 8 stalks should be sufficient. Half a dozen will go into the stock pot, save the other two to be finely minced and flavor the soup at the end.

Smash the lemongrass to release the fragrance. I used a pestle but a meat tenderizer would work too. I used 9 stalks because some of them are rather small. Don't go overboard because too much lemongrass will make your stock bitter.

I used pork soup bones, with marrow and some skin attached, and beef neck bones. Wash and rinse the bones and place them into a stock pot. Fill the pot with water until covered. Boil the meat with bones for 10 minutes.

All the impurities will rise to the top like in the picture below. Dump out the whole pot.

Wash the meat so all the impurities are gone. Wash out the stock pot too unless you have another one to use. Then place the bones back in the stock pot, fill with water and set it on the stove to boil again.

If you'll notice, I had a different and bigger stock pot as well. Here's my trick, I placed two pots of water to boil. I used a smaller stock pot to boil the meat and dump out the impurities. I left the bigger pot where I'll be adding the cleaned meat to boil also. That way, I don't have to wait for a second big pot of water to boil. To this second clean pot, add the cleaned meat bones, one onion, the bruised lemongrass stalks, a few cloves of garlic, a knob of ginger, 1/4 of a pineapple, and 2 tblsp of fermented shrimp paste.

When the mixture boils, again more impurities will rise to the top. Skim and remove the scum.

Then turn your heat down to medium-low and let simmer for at least 3 hours. After that, I let the pot cool down and refrigerate overnight so I can remove excess fat. If you don't want to do that, then after 3 hours, remove everything from the pot except for the broth. The meat should be falling off the bone tender at this point. Shred the meat and add that back into the pot if you wish.

Prepare your other meats. You may use any or all of the following meats. On the left is thit bap (Vietnamese beef shank) and sliced pig's feet. Slice the shank meat about 1/4-inch thick. You don't want it too thin. The pig's feet came pre-sliced.

My dad likes to gnaw on pig's toes so I added that as well.

And blood cubes. I buy them pre-cooked, in one big block. Cut into 2-inch chunks.

And cha lua (Vietnamese steamed pork loaf).

I didn't make any cha tom (Vietnamese shrimp paste) but you can add that as well.

Set aside the blood cubes, steamed pork loaf, and shrimp paste for adding near the end. Add the beef shank and pig's feet to the stock pot. When the pot boils, again skim the scum and turn the heat down to medium-low to simmer. Check the meat after half an hour to see if it's chopstick-tender, meaning you should be able to poke it with a chopstick. You don't want the pig's feet to be too soft as gnawing on the slightly chewy skin is part of the appeal.

Finely slice two stalks of lemongrass like so. Then finely mince them in the food processor and set aside.

Annatto seeds are what makes bun bo Hue broth red.

In a pan on medium heat, add 2 tblsp of oil and 1 tblsp annatto seeds. When the oil turns red and all color seems to have seeped from the seeds, remove the seeds.

You should have a nice bright red color like so.

Add the 2 finely minced stalks of lemongrass and saute for a minute or so to release the fragrance.

Now the bun bo Hue is looking nicely red. Don't worry, that's just the surface, underneath is still a nice beefy-porky broth.

Time to prepare the garnish platter. Select a good-sized banana blossom. Even if you don't eat it all, select the biggest one you can find. The bigger the blossom, the less bitter it tastes. My second-youngest aunt says my mom taught her that. You can see what banana blossoms look like on the tree in my Mekong Delta post.

Look at the baby bananas buds. Banana blossoms have lots of mucous. The blossom is already turning black. So make sure you have a bowl of heavily salted water ready.

Thinly slice the banana blossoms and let them soak in that bowl of heavily salted water to prevent them from browning and to remove some of the astringency. Drain before serving.

Boil the noodles and drain. Remember to upend a bowl into the colander to cut down on clumping.

Check on the pig's feet and see if your meat is done. If so, then add the blood cubes and turn the heat to high so you get a roiling boil. You can use this time to add noodles to the bowls. When the pot starts boiling again, spoon the broth and whatever meats you'd like into the bowl of noodles.

Add the steamed pork loaf or shrimp paste if you wish. Let each person garnish their own bowls with the various herbs and greens. Serve with saucers of Tuong Ot Xa (Vietnamese Lemongrass Chili Sauce) and mam ruoc if people want to add more to their bowls.

funny i came across this! i just made it for dinner last night! i've never heard of putting cha lua in it though! and you just reminded me i should make some cha tom!!! when i'm really lazy (doesn't happen often when it comes to cooking!), there's a vietnamese store that carries all these bouillon cubes that you can basically get in any flavor possible! (bun bo hue, pho, bun rieu, bo kho...the list goes on and on!) perfect when i don't have a lot of time but am really craving something! p.s. why would anyone compare pho and bun bo hue?!!!!! some people just don't know! it's about as bad as people calling pho, "fo"! makes me cringe!!:)

Great recipe and well thought out steps w/ pictures! Just my preference, I usually don't add the annato/lemon grass mixture to the entire soup right away but like to add when heating the broth just priot to each serving (as this is typically eatened over the entire weekend and that way, i can have a relatively clear broth that i can freeze). Also, i keep a jar of that as it lasts a long time for when i unfreeze the broth it's ready to go..

Sounds really good. I did have a soup similar to this while in VN - but, there was no blood cubes or pork loaf or feet - but it definitely had the lemongrassy, shrimpy, red broth. I think that it was in Da Nang city by one of the markets.

Not directly related to the bun bo hue, but the banana blossom made me think of it. When I was in Hoi An last year we ate at a restaurant on the bank of a small river. One of the pre-meal dishes was some kind of banana blossom salad. I don't really remember what was in it besides shredded banana blossom and hair-thin carrot strings. I really don't even remember what the dressing or marinade tasted like that was on it (perhaps some form of nuoc mam) - but, I do remember liking it a lot. If you know of the salad that I'm talking about, I'd love to see you post a recipe for it sometime.

Thank you for that illuminating explanation of the differences between the two noodle soups. Thank you for the demonstration. I've never tried bun bo hue (it's available in some Vietnamese restaurants here), because I've always chosen pho instead.

All I can say is - halleluja! Thank for shedding light on any confusion about this dish.

And thank you for putting all that time and effort into assembling the step-by-step photos and directions. I know the ingredient list and recipe may seem daunting, but homemade Bun Bo Hue can't be beat.

Pho might be my favorite dish but Bun Bo Hue has an equally special place in my heart - my grandpa is *nguoi trung* afterall :)

You know, I also add annatto oil at the end - It makes the dish glisten with red and amber colors.

Again, thanks for this post. It's filed under the many WC recipes I'll be making asap.

A landmark post, WC. Terrific detailed steps and fantastic photos. I've never made bò bún Huế simply because I'd be eating it for months! I've never heard any non-Viet talk about bbH so there's never been any confusion with pho.

Oanh,You did all the basic steps, you just omitted a lot of the side herbs. It's still a lot of work.

Joanna,Thanks.

Nga,Cha lua and cha tom both originated from Hue I think? So I think that's why those meats are also added. I'm quite against using those flavor cubes. Too much MSG and salt. If I were lazy and didn't want to cook, I'd just get it to go. Otherwise, if I'm going to make it, I do it from scratch. Well, even after this post people still don't get that bun bo Hue and pho are different dishes. I hate people calling pho, "fuh." Grrr.

W&S,I had some assam laksa recently too and the lemongrass notes really did remind me of this soup. I think the fish base is similar to the shrimp paste base of bun bo Hue so that's why it tastes similar.

Cake Wardrobe,I hope you like it! I'm the opposite, not such a big dessert person.

Hong,The annatto seed oil and lemongrass mixture is added in the last phase of cooking with the pig's feet. Add lemongrass at the end makes it too raw in taste and I like my broth to be more cohesive.

Jonathan,All the meats are optional so sometimes you won't get everything you see here. Blood cubes and pig's feet are too extreme for some people. As for the banana blossom salad, just take the basics of my VNese chicken salad and add thinly sliced banana blossoms to it.

Eating Club,I'm more of a pho eater myself so that's what I usually order too. But it's worth trying just for a change and see if you like it.

Daphne,This isn't pho, it's bun bo Hue. They're very different soups.

Front Studio,Thanks.

Christine,Ah, well, people still seem to be confused. :P Yeah, this post took a long, long time to get together. Thanks for recognizing that!

Hedgehog,Did you keep your oil on medium-low? Lower heat will keep the annatto seeds from spitting.

Dhanggit,Thanks.

Nikki,Landmark huh? Hehe. Thanks. If I made bun bo Hue for just myself, it'd take forever to finish eating too. That's why it helps to have hungry cousins and friends. :)

Bill,My mom doesn't give precise recipes because she doesn't cook from recipes. She just tells me in general what to add, and I interpret in my own way. But even if I had her exact recipe, it's still not going to end up the same. And my dad is just used to eating her cooking.

I am over the moon that I stumbled upon your blog last night. Have a pot of bun bo hue on the stove as I type this, the soup smells heavenly. My husband has been wanting me to make this soup ever since the best bun bo hue restaurant in sac switched owners. Also, do you have a bun rieu recipe?

Hey - Thanks for the recipe! Any idea how many 6 quarts can feed? You said you were able to feed "many people", but any ideas how many is many, approximately? I'm just trying to see if I have to increase the recipe at all to feed my husband's family. Thanks!

i think i would flip my lid too if someone were to say that bun bo was like pho gone wild. what? really? i've never thought that!

it wasn't until i had moved away from home that i learned to appreciate this dish. if this was what was for dinner growing up, i'd make myself some mì gói. (I KNOW! the horror!) now i make do with ordering it at restaurants. it is my goal to make this sometime...

Thank you for sharing your recipe...I am actually making the paste and the broth tonight...my roomie who is viet did not like the fermented shrimp paste smell while I was cooking it...I think it is lovely and he is betraying his peeps... ;)...lol...jk...I will let you know how it turns out...maybe I will get a pic or two before I eat it all...

This is the first time I log into your site. Love the pix and the step by step instruction. I am a working mom with two kids, and I found that a quick and easy way to cook Bun Bo or Pho is by using the 20Q slow cooker (that is used to cook turkey). Put everything into a pot for a few hours and voila! dinner is ready when you get home from work. (Not a lot of work when you use a slow cooker)

Being that I was born in DaNang, I grow up eating bun bo at least 2-3 times a month. It is still my favorite food. I can't believe people actually thought Pho and Bun bo are similar....whatever....It's like comparing chicken noodle soup to beef stew...

I haven't try your recipe yet, but it looks great! When I am lazy and don't have fresh pineapple on hand I would put in a can of pineapple and it would still taste the same to me.

By the way, you wouldn't have a recipe for goi xoai (mango salad) now would you?

I was preparing to cook the Bun Bo Hue, so I searched and found this recipe. After reading the nine-yard instructions of this elaborate soup with all possible ingredients that the soup could have, I changed my mind. I put the pork meat away and leaving home now to a Vietnamese restaurant to order the soup. Too much work.

Quinn,Funny! I recently posted my recipe for Crock Pot pho and have been asked to do one for bun bo Hue. That'll take a little more work I think since there's way more ingredients to modify. And yes, people still think the two soups are the same. My goi xoai xanh recipe is in my recipe index. Or you can use the searchbar.

Thao/Nhu,Mam ruoc is shrimp paste. I'm not sure what you mean by mam tom unless you're talking about fresh shrimp that is pickled. Mam nem is anchovy paste. If you look in my recipe index or "peek in my kitchen," I have links to the different kinds of sauces and explain what they are and how they're different.

TmtMich,Yup, that's why most people go out for bun bo Hue. :P

Duc & June,Thanks for trying out my recipe! I'm glad it turned out for you. Your mother-in-law's instructions are probably like my mother's - a bit of this and a bit of that. :P

Thanks for this recipe. This was my first attempt making bun bo hue and it turned out well. The hardest part was finding the ingredients but the cashier helped me find the shrimp paste, it was in their refrigerator section. I ended up using pre-minced lemongrass from the freezer section of the Asian store and a small can of pineapple which helped with prepping time. I also used it in a crock pot which felt like it took a good forever of 6 hours on high. I almost didn't let it solidify in the fridge but I'm glad I did because there was a really thick layer of fat the next morning. My fiance didn't particularly like the lemongrass texture so I would recommend straining it out when it's ready to eat if you end up using the pre-minced one. We didn't have any garnishes (except lime) or extra meat because I really just like the broth by itself. I will make this again!

Thank you so much for having this website written in English. We're going to try a few more recipes and look forward to eating them all :)

Tea,Yeah, that's why I don't add minced lemongrass at the end like some people do. I just think it interferes with my enjoyment. Thanks for trying the recipe and giving me feedback!

The story about your friend Matt is so sad and wonderful. I wonder if he's the same one who emailed me a long time ago saying he saved all my recipes to his hard drive because he was afraid they'd disappear? Unless Google goes out of business, my blog isn't going anywhere. :P

Hey there WC,Just had to say ur recipe ROCKS!!!!I'm not VN, but have fallen in love 20 yrs ago with my first Pho Dac Biet (extra tripe and tendon, thank you) and Cha Ca (dig the shrimp paste).Made Bun Bo Hue again the other day. Everyone around the table agreed it was amazing- a million thanks for the recipe. Way too many recipes do not include real VN ingredients, thus we rarely experience the magical balance of REAL VN FOOD. Sure, Mam Ruoc Hué and Mam Nem is pungent, but without these and other ingredients the food is not, well, magical!

Once ran out of Mam ruoc hué and replaced with Lee Kum Kee Fine Shrimp paste-worked out OK

Powdered annatto works well too, and is easy to find in Latino groceries under Achiote

A suggestion for non-VN for summer:Bò Tái Chanh-nice and fresh for those hot summer nights!

Looks great! Thanks for sharing. Too often I see people buying bun bo hue (and other soup base) paste tubs for convenience instead of putting out the sweat equity that is required for this magnificent dish. True, it is rather labor intensive. But when made from scratch, it offers such bold and complex flavors with much depth that no ready-made soup mix can rival. This post makes me smile.

A random tip I learned from my mom: after the parboil and thorough rinse, never bring the new stock up to a full boil. You'll have to then stew the bones longer but the result will be a clearer, cleaner broth.

Thank you for posting the recipe for this soup. I made it last night and it was wonderful. I do not eat as much spice as some of my Vietnamese friends but I enjoy a bow of spicy bun bo hue. In the recipe, I added 8 fresh red Thai chillies to the soup base and it kicked it up a notch. Still not spicy enough IMO, maybe 12 chillies next time. It was delicious at any rate.

Melin,A really big one? :P It's a 7-quart stock pot. How many people it feeds depends on the size of your bowls. But I'd probably double this recipe for 15 people.

Gregory,Great to hear!

The pastes are pungent but oh so good! :)

Nguyen,A lot of recipes or restaurants even, take short cuts and use powdered mixes and MSG. Then finish it off with the shrimp paste and fresh lemongrass at the end to disguise the fact that the broth isn't up to par. Nothing beats doing it right.

The tip is what I adopt for pho. I don't care so much about bun bo Hue since the broth has so many other ingredients that the clarity isn't as much of an issue.

thank you so VERY much for putting step-by-step pictures of this highly nutritious soup. I am Korean and never had Bun Bo Hue before, but now I am definitely going to make it following your recipe book. It looks so, so nutritious. Just from looking at the ingredients, I know that it is high in:

So glad to find this recipe. Thanks for sharing it with us. It is high on my list of things to do as I've been craving GOOD bun bo hue.

My only question is with the chili paste used in the oil mixture. Do you have a picture of it or a name or is it just fresh chilies broken down in a food pro? If yes, just fresh red Thai chilis? I'm assuming you don't mean the Tuong Ot Toi/Xa since those are ready to eat.

Also, how comparable is banana blossom to red cabbage? Is it just a variation or solid substitute? I want to make it as close to authentic as possible but I haven't seen them for sale near me.

Sorry to be a nuisance but the devil is in the details and I notice just about every Anglicized recipe tend to gloss over minor ingredients like soy sauce (which kind? dark, light, mushroom, Chinese, Japanese?)

Thank you again. After I tackle this, I plan to make Laksa. Another of my top 3 favorite noodle soups.

Hi Philip,I used Huy Fong's chili garlic sambal, but you can use fresh chilies or the tuong ot toi/xa too. Any of those would be fine as it flavors a big pot of broth so the nuances aren't as detectable. If you're using fresh chilies, puree them, of course, and adjust according to your spicy tolerance.

Banana blossoms are slightly astringent in taste and really aren't comparable to red cabbage at all, but if you can't find any, it's an acceptable substitute.

Asam laksa or curry laksa? My asam laksa recipe is pretty darn good. I haven't gotten around to blogging the curry laksa yet and admit it needs some tweaking before I do so.

I'm not too sure but I remember doing research and finding recipes that follow closer to the Malaysian style as opposed to the more mixed Singaporean versions. It also involved candlenuts and no fish base.

I will definitely try to find banana blossom. Come to think, I may have actually had it before and IIRC, the texture is pretty unique too.

I finally got time to click around your blog some more and just want to say thanks again for all the great Vietnamese recipes. I used to live in LA too which has (as far as I've experienced) way better Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Thai foods than SF and I miss it all. My favorite were the Sichuan/Mala foods that have been getting really popular lately and still some of the best I've had. At least within the US. Another visit down is in the books for the near future, mostly just to stuff myself and bring back some memories.

Hello! This is the first recipe I have tried from your fabulous site and it turned out soooooo good. I followed the steps exactly and it's not that complicated, just need lots of time. My Swiss husband says it's the best he's ever had, and we had enough to make several meals. Thanks so much for your blog. I look forward to trying more. I live in Indonesia so having all these recipes handy makes me less homesick for my mom's cooking.

I've been looking for this recipe for a while, but I couldn't remember the name! I tried it once a while ago when I was still living in Vancouver. I'm a big fan of lemongrass, so I really wanted to try to make it myself.

Bang,It would taste like star anise-scented bun bo Hue. If that's how you like it, then that's fine. I just pointed that out so that people who were trying to make bun bo Hue, but who used pho spices, wouldn't get the flavor profile they were expecting.

If you use chili powder instead of chili paste, you'll get a chili powder taste, which is quite different. Feel free to experiment, just realize the result you'll get from each substitute will be different.

Do you mean leave the soup bones or the final broth with the meats you're going to eat in the fridge overnight? I usually leave the "clean" version of the pot overnight. Meaning, it's the soup broth that I've already simmered the soup bones and then fished them out and put the meat back into the soup. So the impurities that float to the top after refrigeration can be skimmed off with a spoon or plastic wrap. See my pho bo recipe for how that looks. So then you would just reheat to eat and there's little prep.

I thought I'd let you know that I've been reading you blogs for about two years now. I'm not Vietnamese, but my husband is and he, without a doubt, loves and needs his Vietnamese cuisine. I've used several of your recipes (without telling him initially) and his response, "Mmm...looks like I got myself a Vietnamese girl that can cook." lol :) I'm intimidated to try this recipe (it's my favorite dish in the entire world), but I'm taking a leap soon...fingers crossed it goes well. And thanks for existing :)

I made this recipe over the past 2 days (broth yesterday, soup today) using the lemongrass, sawtooth herb, garlic chives, and ginger out of my own garden. The soup turned out absolutely delicious! This was my first time cooking pig's foot, too. Great recipe.

Great write up! I've used this about 5 times in the past few years and it's been awesome. I did start tweaking it by using uncooked huyet. Makes a big difference when you cook it for about an hour in the broth. Takes on a lot of the flavor profiles.

Ditto on the rant! My other pet peeve is food reality shows making pho in 30 minutes or they throw together elements of the pho and calls it Vietnamese pho. I think that's ground for automatic elimination!

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